


The South Table!

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-06
Updated: 2010-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/13943.html?thread=37144695#t37144695">From the kink meme</a>. Greece and Romano have a chat about the accomplishments of their respective peoples. Includes the line "We invented sex" if you were curious as to how this's gonna go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The South Table!

Usually South Korea was the first to arrive at the ‘South Table!’ There was nothing particularly special about the ‘South Table!’, certainly nothing deserving of an exclamation mark. It was just another corner table in the coffee shop the nations liked to visit during the periodic breaks Germany would allow them during world meetings. South Korea had been having a bad day, several meetings back, when he had plopped himself down in a plush chair next to what would become the ‘South Table!’ He had wanted to be alone, so he’d grabbed a handful of his conference notes, found the sheet with the most whitespace and pulled out a marker:

South Only Table!  
Everyone else go away!  
Bad days originated in the rest of you,  
stop passing them on to me!!

  
Satisfied, South Korea had plonked his head down on the fake wood of the table surface. Not even Super Junior could get him to look up until he was good and _ready_.

Except three minutes later somebody else sat down across from him. It was a scowling Romano, which was to say, it was a normal-looking Romano. South Korea did not appreciate this. “Hey, can’t you read? Buzz off!”

“What’s _your_ problem? Of course I can read; the sign says it’s the fucking south table. What, am I not _south_ enough along with not _Italy_ enough for you?!”

Oh, that was right. Well it didn’t matter, South Korea wanted to be alone. South Italy was stopping him from being alone. Therefore the logical solution was to get South Italy to go away. But South Korea didn’t really feel up to his usual tricks and Romano was apparently trying to ignore everyone. So South Korea took the easy way out and said something about cute little brothers and tomatoes.

The two Souths shouted at each other for a minute or so until South Africa interrupted them by waving herself over and congratulating them on such a nice idea. It couldn’t hurt to have more nations making friends! Could she join the South club too? Of course she could, right? **Right.**

And so the ‘South Table!’ was born. All the other nations learned to stay far away from that corner of the shop, lest they have to deal with South Korea’s exuberance, South Italy’s petulance, or South Africa’s violent mood swings. Or even worse, all three at once.

Until one day…

The meeting had dragged on forever. Correction, the first four hours of a three-day conference had dragged on forever, and it was funny, really, that so many of these stupid innocent bystanders thought Romano would give a damn about their lives. Because he didn’t. All Romano wanted was to get to his table in one piece and _rest_ , and if that stupid hussy at the register thought she was going to chat up everyone in the line then she _obviously_ didn’t look in a mirror often enough.

Shit.

It might not be out loud, but Romano was being rude to a woman. Shit, damn Germany and his stupid meetings and his stupid four hour presentations on safety procedures ( _“Everyone! Listen as I explain what we shall do in the event that there is a power outage during this meeting…”_ ) for ruining Romano’s naturally calm disposition.

_Damn him._

_\- - - - -_

__Romano finally got up to the end of the line, ordered, refused to look the cashier in the eye just in case she could tell what he’d been thinking, and received his drink. Just smelling his pentuple shot espresso ( _he needed it_ ) was already making Romano feel better. That didn’t stop him from glaring at everyone else milling around in the coffee shop because if someone made him spill even _one_ drop today, even if it was a pretty girl…

Well. The situation wouldn’t be pretty. Yeah.

Romano made his way to the ‘South Table!’ and found it already occupied, as usual. But not by South Korea. No, Greece was sitting there instead, leaning half collapsed against a window and staring at nothing in particular. His clothes, while usually a little rumpled from his frequent naps, were askew and a small paper cup filled with what Romano could just _tell_ was the cheapest plain black coffee on the menu sat in front of him.

In short, Greece looked like something that didn’t belong at the ‘South Table!’ so what the fuck was he doing there?

Romano carefully set down his drink, and cursed softly when he realized that his regular seat was the one right next to where Greece had chosen to park his sorry ass. Damn it, Romano was South Italy. He _belonged_ at this table, and he was _not_ giving up his seat just because it meant sitting closer to Greece who looked like a fashion apocalypse and who kind of smelled funny.

So he sat down.

A few seconds passed.

Romano could notice certain things from his seat, which was in part why he had picked it. For instance, he could see the large table where most of the E.U. nations usually sat together. It was where Romano himself had used to sit before he’d gotten into an argument and never gone back. But from his new spot at the ‘South Table!’, if he craned his neck a little bit, Romano could keep track of his little brother as the moron had his own drink and hung all over that German.

Yes, even though Romano hated Germany, he had specifically chosen a spot where he could keep an eye on him from afar. Obviously for Veneziano’s safety. Romano was such a fucking saint. But today Germany wasn’t busy going over notes or fraternizing with Romano’s stupid little brother. No, today Germany was _staring_ , right over at the ‘South Table!’ and Romano wondered for half a second if it was because he had found the old land mine in his rose bushes yet.  
Probably not.

Germany’s face looked freakish and evil and _mean_ , but Romano couldn’t feel any particular potato death vibes being channeled at _him_. It was at that point that Romano remembered about Greece. That was right, Greece hadn’t been doing so great lately. On closer inspection, Greece looked less like a fashion apocalypse and more like death warmed over. His nose was running and he wasn’t even doing anything about it.

Ew.

But Romano could appreciate the solidarity that came with not getting along with Germany, so he struck up a conversation anyway.

Romano didn’t even notice, half an hour later, that none of the other official South nations had made it over to their table. Usually that annoyed him, because he hated sitting alone. But today he wasn’t alone, and actually, Greece wasn’t all that bad to talk to, even when he had a cold.

For one thing, apparently one of the worst symptoms of Greece’s sickness was insomnia. Consequentially, he and Romano had actually been able to have a decent, constant conversation because Greece hadn’t been able to fall asleep in the middle of it.

Imagine that.

“Well, we have the Parthenon.” They had somehow wound up talking about the achievements of their respective forebears, mingled with achievements of their own. It was interesting, and even though it was sort of one big one-upmanship contest, Romano wasn’t getting angry.

“We have the Coliseum.”

“Touché. ”

“Use French again and I’ll throttle you.” Greece sneezed. “I can right now, you know that.” Greece was fully aware that right now he was so sick that even South Italy could thrash him single handedly. It didn’t make him feel any better.

“Sure. Right, ah, Greeks gave birth to advanced mathematics.”

Romano let that statement mellow in his mind. Now if Greece had been in better health, Romano wouldn’t have felt bad at _all_ asking Greece to repeat himself in a louder voice. India was only sitting two tables over after all, and both China and Turkey were in the vicinity. And Romano did so love a fight ( _when he didn’t have to be part of it_ ). But Greece was sick and the conversation wasn’t all that bad, so instead Romano replied, “We had the Roman Empire.”

“That was your grandfather.”

“Yeah well don’t get me started on how many of the things you claimed actually belong to your mother.”

Greece thought about it, sneezed, brushed a little cat hair off his crinkled suit jacket, and nodded. It was fair.

The next few minutes passed in silence at the ‘South Table!’ and just as Romano was beginning to think that Greece had forgotten that it was his turn ( _or dozed off_ ), Greece sat up straight and spoke. His voice was smooth and calm, didn’t give away any hint that the user was sick, and was very reminiscent ( _though not nearly as good as_ ) the tone Romano used with pretty girls that didn’t hold up the register line in coffee shops.

“We invented sex.”

If Greece thought that would startle Romano into submission, then he must have been tossing back one too many bottles of cough syrup. Romano was _not_ shy about sex, and in fact he had the perfect counter all thought up:

“True,” Greece looked surprised at the admission, but Romano forged ahead, “but it was the Italians who introduced it to women."

What _now_ Greece?

A sneeze was apparently now, but after that, Greece recovered quickly. Too quickly for a sick nation. “...and goats.”

The loud ‘rrrrrr’ of “ **Don’t compare me to my fucking grandfather!!!!** ” rang out through the coffee shop and beyond. It attracted a few stares, but once they saw that it was just South Italy yelling about something again, the stares drifted away.

South Korea, however, drifted closer from his spot in the order line. “Hey, South Italy, what’s this I hear about goat sex originating in you?”


End file.
